US Energy Secretary Chris Wright visits Venezuela to assess oil industry
overhaul
[February 12, 2026] By
REGINA GARCIA CANO
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright
arrived Wednesday in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment of the
country's oil industry, a visit that further asserts the U.S.
government's self-appointed role in turning around Venezuela’s
dilapidated energy sector.
Wright met Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the
Miraflores presidential palace in the capital, Caracas. He is expected
to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a
three-day visit to the South American country.
Wright’s visit comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald
Trump continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate
in Venezuela and help rebuild the nation’s most important industry. It
follows last month’s enactment of a Venezuelan law that opened the
nation’s oil sector to private investment, reversing a tenet of the
self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more
than two decades.
“I bring today a message from President Trump,” Wright told reporters as
he stood next to Rodríguez with flags from both countries behind them.
“He is passionately committed to absolutely transforming the
relationship between the United States and Venezuela, part of a broader
agenda to make the Americas great again, to bring our countries closer
together, to bring commerce, peace, prosperity, jobs, opportunity to the
people of Venezuela.”
Rodríguez was sworn into her new role after the brazen Jan. 3 seizure of
then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Caracas. She
proposed the overhaul of the country’s energy law after Trump said his
administration would take control of Venezuela’s oil exports and
revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment.
Rodríguez on Wednesday acknowledged that Venezuela’s relationship with
the U.S. has had “highs and lows” but said both countries are now
working on a mutually benefiting “energy agenda.”
“Let diplomatic dialogue ... and energy dialogue be the appropriate and
suitable channels for the U.S. and Venezuela to maturely determine how
to move forward,” she said.
Rodríguez’s government expects the changes to the country's oil law to
serve as assurances for major U.S. oil companies that have so far
hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those
companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing
law two decades ago to favor Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA.
The new law now grants private companies control over oil production and
sales, ending PDVSA's monopoly over those activities as well as pricing.
It also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, removing a
mandate for disagreements to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which
are controlled by the ruling party.
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Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez greets U.S. Energy
Secretary Chris Wright at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas,
Venezuela, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
 Foreign investors view the
involvement of independent arbitrators as crucial to guard against
future expropriation.
Wright told reporters the reform “is a meaningful step in the right
direction” but “probably not far and clear enough to encourage the
kind of large capital flows" the U.S. would like to see in
Venezuela.
Wright planned to visit oil fields Thursday.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and
produces about 1 million barrels a day, has long relied on oil
revenue as a lifeblood of its economy.
Trump imposed crippling sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry during
his first term, locking out the state-owned company Petróleos de
Venezuela S.A. of the global oil markets in an attempt to topple
Maduro. That pushed his government to rely on a shadowy fleet of
unflagged tankers to smuggle deeply discounted crude into global
supply chains.
In December, Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil
tankers” entering or leaving the South American country, ramping up
pressure on Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter
chokehold on Venezuela’s economy. U.S. forces that month also began
seizing oil tankers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.
Since Maduro's Jan. 3 ouster, the Trump administration set out to
control the production, refining and global distribution of
Venezuela’s petroleum products and oversee where the revenue flows.
The administration also began lifting broad sanctions, but also
continued seizing tankers — now in agreement with Venezuela's
government — including one this week in the Indian Ocean after it
was tracked from the Caribbean Sea.
Wright on Wednesday told reporters the blockade is “essentially
over” as the U.S. is “flowing Venezuelan crude out, selling it at a
much higher price than Venezuela was selling it before,” and the
revenue is being used in specific projects benefiting Venezuelans.
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